Sunday, 23 November 2008

There are a few things happening. Semester is nearly over, and while I don't have any work lined up in the department for next semester. Hopefully though my courses at the adult education centre will be running.

I've completed one batch of first year essays - usual mix of lack of spell-checking and proofreading, plus a large number who failed to actually answer what the question was asking, and a very small number who didn't answer the question at all. What really irritated me was the fact that in the first group who I returned the essays to, had divided themselves (no idea how) so all the people who had reasonable grades were together and those who did not were all together. They were not happy. They actually said I had graded too hard out loud in front of everyone else. All of our grading is checked before being returned by the course convenor so there was not question over being overly harsh. Then I heard the comment as they talked to one another - 'oh I didn't think we needed all of that sort of thing, I assumed you would know it'. The number of times I've heard Undergrads use that excuse is ridiculous - it actually seems like they do not realise the purpose of setting essays - to test their knowledge, not ours. The rest of the classes went fine, the other groups just seem to be a little bit better at taking things on board.

So thats 40-odd essays done, now I have another dozen or so for the second year class, plus another 40-odd second first year essays in a week or so, and some other coursework for the second level. Oh joy.

I've started reading a new column in the Independent, 'Diary of a Fresher'. This has been quite entertaining... especially the transition to what University expects and how you fit in. I'll post the links at the bottom of this post as they're worth a read.